I will survive
by Valaena The Historyteller
Summary: A modern AU about how Jon Snow might find out about his parentage, which was kept from him just like in the show and books by Ned Stark. Ned frankly wanted to keep the secret a little but longer, but the possible reappeareance of an old friend of his and a distant relation might make it impossible. Murder, inheritances and family relation here! College student Jon Snow!


Hello! an oneshot I wrote to get it out of my head when I´mtrying to prepare for an exam. Hope you like it!

"Mistress? We have some news you would want to hear" Hastings said, approaching his employer. Rhaella Targaryen immediately put aside her needlework and grabbed the phone from her butler. After a short conversation with whoever was on the other side of the phone, it became obvious that the situation was dire. And the woman´s expression. It was as if she was suddenly bitten by a particularly poisonous snake. From the ones that kill you with lots of pain. "Is there something wrong, my lady?"

"Yes" she clapped her hands. "I want you to call the Martells and tell them to keep Rhaenys and Aegon in check. Then send for Daenerys. I would feel more comfortable if someone goes to Bethlem to make sure Aerys and Viserys are still there. Safe" she picked up something else from a bedside table. "Tell her to take more guards than usual with her."

"Do I prepare another car for you?"

"No, prepare some plain tickets" she added, trying not to let her feelings pour into her voice. "To America" she sighed. "It´s time my grandson knows his grandmother. And his own past."

"Is it safe? You know what the Martells thought of your son´s second wedding and how it would affect their niece´s and nephew´s inheritance. That´s why you accepted your gooddaughter´s family´s deal of keeping out of his life, despite your own feelings."

"You know me too much, Bonifer, but there is no other option this time… No, Bonifer, leave the phone where it is. I´m going to need it to announce my visit to our estimate Mr. Stark in America" she opened her notebook and started marking a number. "Hope is not very late on the other side of the globe, I would hate to make an inconvenience out of myself even in this situation."

"Mistress, it´s three a.m. in America. Can´t it wait until tomorrow?"

"I´m afraid no"

"Why?"

"Because, my dear friend, the Demon of the Trident is out again" Hastings sucked on a breath when he heard those words. How could such a man be free again? Obviously he escaped, because the steam some judges had for the Targaryen family would prevent any of them from setting the man who murdered the dearly departed Rhaegar Targaryen free again. "Is the boy in danger?"

"Could be, my friend… could be"

-In America-

"Ned? Ned, wake up, the phone is ringing"

"Let it ring, whoever is calling at this unholy hour must exhaust him or herself sooner than later" Catelyn nudged her husband with her foot when his prediction turned out to be wrong. Dead tired, Eddard Stark got out of bed and picked up the phone. "Whoever is calling, stop right now. It´s fucking 3 a.m. in the morning…"

"As nice as I remember, Mr. Stark" the voice with a deep English accent left him paralysed in the spot. It was an accent he had hoped to never heard again. Or at least not for a few more months. He quickly got out of the room, not wanting to have this conversation in front of his wife. "You remember me, I´m sure. After all, there used to be a link between our families…"

"What do you want?" he asked, deep serious. That issue barging into his life was something he didn´t want to deal with, not now or ever. After all, it was a particularly painful one for him. "Hope you are not just calling because of Jon´s upending twenty first birthday…"

"Do you think I would call you at this _ungodly hour_, as you called it, just for that" the silver haired woman continued. "No, what I need to discuss with you is more urgent than a long awaited birthday."

"Why do you think I would discuss…"

"Mr. Stark, please, listen to me" Rhaella said very serious. "Robert Baratheon escaped jail a few hours ago."

Eddard froze over at hearing the news. So much that he didn´t realised when Catelyn picked up the phone, to listed to his private conversation through another line. The redhead, keeping a hand on the hanging bottom and another in clutching the machine near her ear. Her body trembled a bit when she heard her husband talking with a female.

"Are you going to come?" he asked, so anxious that she couldn´t recognize his voice at first. "When are you going to arrive? No offense, but I have some explaining to do before you show up in our doorstep and turn Jon´s life upside down."

"Expect me one week from now, I still have some things to sort out here before I can take the trip" a deeply accented voice answered, making the Stark woman shake. "I hope you have explained the situation before my arrival, because I wouldn´t want to… barge in as you put it once."

"Glad you remember our last encounter" he answered before saying his goodbyes and hang. Catelyn hanged in that moment too, faking that she has been sleeping the whole time when her husband laid down again. But couldn´t for much, opening her eyes as she felt him settling down on the bed.

"Who was it?" she asked, hoping for a sincere answer.

"Just… someone I used to know" Ned said, not wanting to release too much information until he really had to. And he needed a lot of preparations to do so. "By the way, dear, when are Robb and Jon coming back from college. Jon´s birthday is coming and I wanted to make him something special, in family. It would also be a good way to say goodbye to Sansa now that she entered fashion school. It would be nice to have all the kids here again."

"Are you having an empty nest syndrome already? Honey, we still got three more to go" answered Catelyn, her joke sounding somewhat empty. Ned believed her, anyway, and get back to sleep. She, on the other side, couldn´t. Her suspicions didn´t allow her.

Don´t misunderstand her, she had once been a normal woman. A young, enamoured one, recently married. She still remembered how happy she was to have such a good husband. It had ended twenty years before, when a phone call was all that took to make her husband abandon her and their son for weeks to go on an unplanned trip to England, from where he returned with a babe her Robb´s age. And it was not that her marriage was bad, because it was good, but since then it was tainted by suspicions and worries. Specially when the baby, that Jon Snow who looked so much like her husband, was concerned. She always thought he was his illegitimate child, but he never said it plainly. But… what else could he be?

The sense was amplified when, in the few days before weekend, Ned managed to convince Robb and Jon to come home, went to the basement and brought down an ancient sealed box Catelyn had never seen before. And she had been on that place more than she wanted to admit to. The promised day arrived more quickly than she would have liked, but it also brought joy. It was an enjoyable meeting, with lots of food and chatter and laughs… she felt completely happy despite the presence of that boy. Completely happy again.

But then again, nothing good lasted. And she knew the joy was over when Ned called them all back to the living room for a chat, sending Bran and Rickon to Jojen´s house and staying only with the big kids. The dreadful box was there, sitting on display for all to see.

"Jon… kids, Catelyn, what I´m going to say doesn´t leave this room, okay?" he waited until they promised, his wife trembling in expectation. What dirty secret was he going to blurt out at them? Had he been unfaithful to her like she thought? "Jon… I know it had been hard to you, with all the secretes around you, about you, I have been keeping, but…"

"Then it´s true?" Sansa asked, displaying an awful lack of tact that was not usual in the Stark´s oldest daughter. "You were unfaithful to mom after Robb was born and Jon is the result of that affair?"

"What? No! Who told you that?" the girl turned as red as her hair.

"Well… aunt Lysa said mother had those suspicions…"

"Lysa should have kept her mouth shut about things she didn´t understand, then" Eddard said, throwing Catelyn an angry look. "and I thought better of you than that, Cat. I thought we trust each other."

"Well, have you told me anything about his parentage, I wouldn´t be making up crazy theories in my mind like a bloody lunatic" Jon just listened to them talking, his arms crossed. Just what the hell was happening here? This was supposed to be about him. When had it turned out to be about their relationship? "And why are you bringing this up now? It has something to do with the English woman who called earlier in the week?"

"Were you spying on me?" the redhead turned away. "I will have to tell you then that I never had any affair with any woman, her less. She is Jon´s grandmother from England calling, saying that she is going to be here for his birthday."

"Do I have a grandmother?"

"Does Jon have a granny?" Arya asked.

"Yes, he has. Rhaella Targaryen… your father´s mother" he confessed, not knowing if he should continue. Jon was looking more and more unhappy with each second that passed. "Catelyn should remember her from your parent´s wedding, to which she accompanied me to."

"I don´t remember ever going to England with you"

"It was here" he pulled out a photo from the box, showing it to her. "You see? You are right there with me in Lyanna´s wedding" she inspected the photo, noticing herself there. God, that was a long time ago. "Ahem" he pulled another photo and gave it to Jon, uncomfortable. "Your parents, my sister Lyanna and her husband, Rhaegar Targaryen. Her ENGLISH husband, with whom she moved after her wedding."

"How was I supposed to know that he was English? I can barely remember your sister or her wedding, let alone having talked to her at some point. We didn´t have much in common…"

"You knew that Lyanna lived in England…"

"I knew that she lived abroad, not the country she lived…"

"Hey, it´s all very interesting and all, but can we return to my parents? Namely why they left me? Or why I´m only hearing now about this mysterious grandmother of mine?" Jon stared at the photon in his hands with some anger. "Why haven´t you talked about them until now?"

"Because, talking about them would mean telling you about this" Eddard passed him a newspaper cut. With a sceptic look, he grabbed it and read it faster. It was about the murder of a couple in a family cinema parking lot. Apparently the husband was murdered first, with a clean shot to the hearth, then his wife, found covering their one-year-old with her body. There were photos of the crime scene, the cinema Trident, and of the young couple. His face turned into one of horror. Catelyn took the paper out of his hands in that moment staring at the date.

"This is from the night you had to fly to England" she understood then. "Oh, Ned, I´m so sorry. Had you just told me…"

"Lyanna was still alive when I arrived. The doctors couldn´t explain, she was dying and losing so much blood and they couldn´t do anything… but she was still alive, waiting for me and Benjen to arrive. She barely clung to live in those last moments, until she extracted the promise from us to protect you."

"Protect me? Why was she so worried about me?" asked Jon without understanding.

"Hummmm, you better sit down for the next part" they all did, very serious. Even Sansa, who was never serious. "You see, when I was young, I had a best friend named Robert Baratheon. We were as close as you and Robert. So much that… he was my best man at my wedding" he coughed again, uncomfortable. His wife made a disgusted expression, remembering that man. He was in prison for something she didn´t remember now. "Well, in prep school Robert started noticing my sister. The man became enamoured with her and asked her out… she said no."

"You didn´t tell me about my parents because of a man my mother turned down in prep school?" asked Jon in disbelieve. "Look, I don´t even remember how many times I got turned down by girls in prep school before Ygritte accepted to date me."

"Robert was not like you, he had never been turned down by any girl before Lyanna. And, in his mind, no girl had the right to say no to him after he invited them out"

"And you were friends with that kind of man?"

"I turned a blind eye at many of his faults, I will admit it, but in that time it was not so bad. He continued asking and I tried to convince Lyanna to date him at least once, so she saw what an amazing guy he was, but she despised him. Live continued normally… Things got really hectic when Robert´s English cousin Rhaegar came to USA for an exchange semester in Julliart"

"Julliart? He was an artist?"

"A musician… a genius musician. He was some famous interpreter of classic music before he died, from what I know. Maybe that was why he got so on with Lyanna, she was also an artist in her own way. To be a gymnast and amazon you have to" suddenly Jon felt some pressure he never had felt before. A pressure to be better because of his parent´s achievements. "anyway, Rhaegar stayed with the Baratheons a during his time here. Lyanna met him because I used to drag her and Benjen to Robert´s parties. And she took pity on Rhaegar when Robert played him a particularly nasty joke during one."

"Nasty joke?"

"Emmmm… he threw Rhaegar to the swimming pool of his home during a party and had his brother Renly upload it on youtube under the name Loser Cousin. Lyanna punched him in the face for humiliating someone like that and helped Rhaegar out of the pool. They became fast friends after that" he moved his head a bit. "they kind of lose contact after he returned to England, but found each other again after ten years, during a horse riding competition of some sort"

"And?"

"They reassumed their friendship and somehow started dating, came to America to meet our parents, married some months after and we all forgot about Robert. Except Robert." He sighed "While preparing for her wedding, Lyanna turned him down at least ten times more. You see, she had become his obsession. No other woman dared to say no to him" Eddard rubbed his temples. "I thought he would forget about her when news of her happy marriage and your birth arrived, but… that was the last drop for his obsessed mind. He grabbed a gun, shot Rhaegar and tried to kill you too, but Lyanna managed to put herself between you and the bullets. He was arrested shortly after, when the police heard Lya´s testimony."

"And after?"

"Robert was named the Demon of the Trident and your paternal family and I got into a fight for the custody which your grandmother decided to give up after she listened to reason" Jon put a face of resentment that pulled some of Eddard´s hearth strings. "She didn´t want to leave you, but there were some issues that would have made it dangerous for her to keep you."

"Like what?"

"Well, the two main reasons were that there was a history of mental health issues in your family. Rhaella was already dealing with much with her eldest son death, her husband and other son in a hospital for schizophrenia and her daughter, the only person she could lean on, also in a bad shape because of her husband´s death and a miscarriage." He swallowed hard. "And there was that issue with the Martells."

"Who?"

"The Nymeros Martell. They are a noble family with many connections to Saudi Arabia" he sighed again. "You see, Rhaegar was a widower by the time he meet again with Lyanna. His first wife, Elia Nymeros Martell, had died three years prior. He already had a son and a daughter when you were born" Jon felt the need to scream. How many family members unknown to him were there in the world? "The thing was… Elia´s family didn´t take his second wedding too well. Or your birth, which drastically cut down the amount of inheritance their niece and nephew were going to receive in case of Rhaegar´s death."

"Inheritance?" Jon asked, raising an eyebrow. Money had never been an issue for him. the Stark family was very well positioned, they had a really big house in very good section of the city. Robb drove a Volvo, Sansa a Ferrari… Jon never asked for much, just some help in his students and perhaps saw himself as an outsider of the family, with his cheap car and clothes he bought himself with the money gained from part time and summer jobs his uncle always said he didn´t need, but to know he had money… "What are you talking about?"

"Shortly before he died, Rhaegar wrote a will, leaving his personal fortune and belongings to his three children. It´s in an escrow right now, but the inheritance will be handed to the heirs by the time the last one of you turns twenty-one."

"Meaning that in three months I will be receiving my money"

"And some properties in England and other places. Properties the Martells didn´t think you should have."

"I don´t want troubles. And I´m not planning to go to England or any place abroad very soon, so you can tell the Martells we can negotiate a right price for…"

"Don´t say it before you have seen them" Robb intervened, his training as a lawyer kicking in. "Maybe I can revise the documents and…"

"You don´t want to deal with this family, believe me. They have very dangerous ties to powerful people and dangerous organizations. In fact, Elia Martell´s brother Oberyn is a very dangerous man. They said he and his daughters fixed many things for the Martell family, besides having many connections… especially to problematic people."

"Then why am I still alive?"

"Because Rhaegar´s will stipulated that if any of his heirs dies before they came of age in any other way than natural death, the others won´t receive anything" his uncle said. "I´m only saying this so you be careful. Okay? And there are other more realistic threats than Oberyn Martell and his vast brood right now."

"Like what?" Jon said, losing his patience quickly. He had found out in a day that he had a brother and a sister with a family that might decide to end him as soon as he reached twenty-one years old; a paternal extended family with half members on a mental health hospital and a fortune waiting for him in England.

"Rhaella called me a few days ago to tell me that she is coming, but this is not a social visit in any extent" he sighed, looking at his children. "Robert Baratheon just escaped prison in England and she had reasons to believe he is coming back home" A worried face suddenly appeared on everyone´s faces. "So I want you all to be on alert. It´s that understood? I will also talk with Bran and Rickon later, so the alert is for everyone."

"Yes"

-Later-

"Dammit" Jon couldn´t sleep now. He spent his whole time starring at the photo on his old night´s table, staring at the smiling faces of the parents he didn´t got to know. He supposed he should feel some kind of pain or affect towards them, but he just felt numbness. Horrible numbness he didn´t remember ever feeling before. And he couldn´t stop himself from asking what could it have been. If Robert Baratheon had never gone for his parents, would he have grown up with them, in England, not knowing his brothers and sisters… would he has been as happy as in this life? His life has been happy, there was no way to deny it. Despite Catelyn´s suspicions and everything, he had been pretty much a happy kid. But he always felt like he didn´t belong, that he was an outsider… maybe he was. The Targaryen in the Stark den, that´s what he was. Did she felt like that when she moved too? His mother, he meant, the one that sacrificed her life to safe him.

"I promise" he said, caressing the photo. When he had time, he will put it into a mark and in an honour place in his apartment near school. Then he will figure out what else to do with his so called inheritance. Beginning with showing the people who didn´t want him who he really was. "I promise I will stay alive and continued with my life, no matter how many people desires otherwise. I promise."

With this, he curled up to sleep, ready to fight whatever he needed to, to stay alive and happy as he had been before. No matter what.

Did you like it? Usually my modern au ideas include more White Walkers, as in a zombie apocalipse, but this kind of history has been rounding about in my head for some time now. Hope you enjoy it and if you want me to make it a longer project, just tell me and I will do so. Until later! Review!


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